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Simplest no-frill Bass Amp. Does one exist?

#24
I would have suggested GK MB series but they do have a certain character of tone, which I happen to like a lot but it's not for everyone. If you want really clean and simple, Markbass might be the ticket. Little Mark III is simple, powerful and clean and is a proven design. I've not tried the Kustom amp but some here seem to like it quite a lot.
 
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#27
derrico1 said:
Why? Is this an aesthetic goal or do you just have a thing about controls?

Just about any head that's capable of decent tone is capable of plug-and-play. Just dial in the amp's gain, volume, and eq until you like the sound, and then leave the controls there.

In practice, eq and gain controls are handy tools. Your tone from night to night will seem altered by stage design, your amp placement, Fletcher-Munson effects, frequency masking from the way your bandmates have dialed in their gear, PA spill, etc. Even if your rig is only for stage monitoring, it's sometimes a gig-saver to be able to dial in some extra mid-range intelligibility, dial out some low-end mud, or just adjust to the apparent boost in bass when you play at higher volumes..
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All good points and I don't disagree. I could live with an extremely simple eq circuit. I just want my bass to go thru as few electronics as possible. So no, it's not an aesthetic I'm going for (if by Aesthetic you mean the "visual look or appearance" of the amp). It's really just to keep my life simple by not having a million bells and whistles at my fingertips.
 
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#32
Quilbert said:
I have an orange terror bass 500w. It's small, loud, has so few enough controls so even p-bass players can use it and not get confused .
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LOL!!! Thanks.....I think. I had a terror bass a few years ago. Liked it a lot.

So far the Hartke is looking like a winner. I like the clean tone it pumps out. Carvin stuff is looking surprisingly good too, although a little too many knobs for my taste.

Keep the ideas coming people! I really appreciate your time and thoughts.
 
#33
Another vote for the Orange. I have the Terror Bass 1000 and another thing is it's so easy to carry to a gig. Just put it in it's bag, sling it over your shoulder and you're good to go. The only thing is you have to use a Speakon only cable with it, in case that's an issue, but there are 1/4" adapters in case a cab doesn't have that option. Which reminds me that I really should get one of those, just in case.
 
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#34
Paul LF said:
Another vote for the Orange. I have the Terror Bass 1000 and another thing is it's so easy to carry to a gig. Just put it in it's bag, sling it over your shoulder and you're good to go. The only thing is you have to use a Speakon only cable with it, in case that's an issue, but there are 1/4" adapters in case a cab doesn't have that option. Which reminds me that I really should get one of those, just in case.
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Yeah what's with the speakon only? Anyhow I find the 500w wicked loud, there's no tomfoolery regarding quoted watts either it's 500w @4/8 ohms. The 1000w mist be a monster altogether !

My bag is pretty wrecked now, might just dump it, get the amp nice and worn in looking :)
 
#36
Quilbert said:
Yeah what's with the speakon only? Anyhow I find the 500w wicked loud, there's no tomfoolery regarding quoted watts either it's 500w @4/8 ohms. The 1000w mist be a monster altogether !

My bag is pretty wrecked now, might just dump it, get the amp nice and worn in looking :)
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Thats not tomfoolery.... Its widely understood that a SS amp puts out less power at a higher impedance.
 
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#38
Quilbert said:
Yeah what's with the speakon only? Anyhow I find the 500w wicked loud, there's no tomfoolery regarding quoted watts either it's 500w @4/8 ohms. The 1000w mist be a monster altogether !

My bag is pretty wrecked now, might just dump it, get the amp nice and worn in looking :)
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Yeah, I love the ohm selector on it and it is pretty f'n loud. I haven't fully dimed it yet, though. Kind of scared to in case I fry my speaker. It's a Carvin 18" 4 ohm 500 watter (1000 watt program,) but I'd like to eventually replace it with an 8 ohm Celestion so I could also have the option to get another cab down the road to stack, if I want to. I thought the Speakon only was annoying at first, only for the reason that those cables are so damned expensive, but it does work rather nicely so I suppose it's worth it. I got the head extremely dirt cheap, anyway.
 
#39
For several years I used an Ampeg Billy Sheehan preamp with only bass, mid, and treble controls on the clean channel that I played through pretty much all the time. Simple and sounded great (still sounds great, actually), but also needs a power amp to push my sound.

Last year I decided to try something smaller and lighter for an amp, so I picked up a second hand Carvin BX500 from the classifieds here. Bear with me - this head comes with significant eq controls, but it's easy enough to NOT use them at all. The Drive control is rather subtle, the one-knob compression stays off for me, and the graphic eq stays deactivated when I use this head. Other eq controls stay right in the middle (zero boost or cut) and the master volume does its thing.

This rig was so simple and straightforward for me that I used it at a rather challenging fill-in gig the very same day I got it in the mail. It ran like a champ. Carvin also offers more powerful versions of this amp, but they also have a couple of whoppers (B2000) with even more simple layouts on their front panels. Given the simplicity you're looking for, you might get the bang for your buck from the folks at Carvin.
 

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